FSFE Newsletter - March 2013

Brussels flooded with Free Software activists

From February 1st to February 3rd thousands of people went to Brussels to
participate in FOSDEM -- the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European
Meeting. At FOSDEM you have the opportunity to meet developers and
contributors from nearly all major Free Software projects. FSFE is always there
to talk with people about ongoing developments and the needs and contributions
in the Free Software community. So it is a good place to exchange information,
talk with very interesting people, plan future activities, and meet all the
people you would usually just have e-mail contact with.

Just three weeks later, we were shocked to hear that Mr Alvaro had a car
accident and is still in hospital with serious injuries. FSFE wishes him a fast
and full recovery.

Why we love Free Software

A lot of people followed our
call to participate in the I love Free Software activity. The result –
which has been summarised in a
report by FSFE's new interns Lucile Falgueyrac and Stepan Stehlicek – was
a lot of e-mails, blog posts, pictures and a comic strip. E.g., Fellow Mirko
Böhm explains why he loves Free Software:

The benefits of Free Software go beyond the individual
contributors and the communities they form. The four freedoms laid out as the
foundations of Free Software are a fanfare to the ability to exercise one’s
free will, to freely collaborate by helping your neighbors, to achieve
independence from directions other people have thought up for us. The effects
can be seen all around us – when teaching material for schools is developed
collaboratively and freely shared, when government data is opened up to
improve the transparency of the political process, when the technical
foundations of the internet and the operating systems running modern
technology become a common good, and in many other places. People start to
expect similar freedoms they learned to get used to in software when engaging
in society. And more participation is always better.

Something completely different

Our DFD team published a video
tutorial, which explains how to watch Youtube videos using HTML5. Do
not miss this month's "get-active" item below, which is also about Document
Freedom Day.

We have received a report about a successful case of Windows
tax refund in Croatia. One has to apply for the refund within 30
days of a purchase of an ASUS product and fill out a form in order to receive
€42 refund for Microsoft Windows 8 OEM.

LWN writes about trademarks and
their limits, the idea behind trademarks, about how effective this
protection is, and gives examples of bad behaviour; e.g., offering Free
Software with unwanted toolbars and adware.

In FSFE we receive a lot of license questions, but we have not yet
evaluated how many we receive through country teams, our legal teams, or over
the phone. Our sister organisation FSF reports
that they have responded to and resolved over 400 reports of suspected
license violations and over 600 general licensing and compliance
questions.

Your editor has written an article for the German news site Heise titled
"Politics
and Free Software". The article covers his experience from the
parliament working group on interoperability, standards, and Free
Software.

You wonder why we published the DFD as ".webm"? Peter Bubestinger wrote a summary article
about different video formats from a Free Software perspective, explaining
that digital video consists of video codec, audio codec, and container
format. He explains the different codecs, and why some videos do not work
out of the box on a Free Software Distribution.

In 2012 groups of volunteers ran 54 events in 23 different countries. If you
want to get some inspiration for your event, take a look at our activity packages
or the DFD
report from 2012. Help us to make this year's DFD the most successful
yet!

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About FSFE

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
control technology.

Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. It is important
that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software
gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software.
These rights help support other fundamental rights like freedom of
speech, freedom of press and privacy.